


The Butterflies are Wrong

by bastanubis29



Series: #Nomin: The pure couple we deserve [11]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, M/M, OOC, Sad, Stream of Consciousness, school au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-25 03:43:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17717405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bastanubis29/pseuds/bastanubis29
Summary: This is a lil angsty. Also known as, I finally write that norenmin love triangle I've been thinking about.





	The Butterflies are Wrong

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: this is sad. If you don't want to be sad, don't read it.  
> Warning: minor suicide joke; it's just Jaemin being dramatic, but it is in there.
> 
> This was my first delve into Stream of Consciousness writing, so I'm sorry if it sucks or is hard to follow. (Unedited)

Jaemin hates himself just a little bit more than usual. He should have manned up and told Renjun that he likes Jeno, but the minute that Renjun told him that Chenle was trying to set the two up, he froze.

He  _ really  _ hates himself for not telling the majority of his friends sooner, because now he’s suffering for it.

He really can’t blame anyone but himself; Jeno is a catch, and the whole world would have to be blind not to see that. And, unfortunately for Jaemin, the world is not blind.

* * *

He thinks that it started about six months ago, when they were juniors and working together on a project about manipulation in the media.

He had tagged along to their group, an extra piece that kept the rest organized and on top of things. It shouldn’t have surprised him that he’d managed to begin falling for Jeno in that time; he’d fallen in love over far less in the past.

Then summer came, and it was easy enough to put out of sight, but not out of mind. He went from seeing Jeno every other day to texting him every other day about the mundane.

Funnily enough, it was easy for Jaemin to fall into a pattern with Jeno, until Jeno stopped responding.

His heart sank, and he pushed on, resolutely promising himself that it would be better once school started again; he could distract himself with school work and his classes, and forget about the boy who possessed his thoughts more often than not.

School started again, as it must, and Jaemin pushed through his first class with the grace of someone who had done it all before.

And then his English class rolled around. He was seated, luckily, with his friend Lucas, and wasn’t particularly worried about anything else. And then Jeno walked in, and Jaemin’s heart stuttered. 

It was just his luck, and he should have known that he wouldn’t be so lucky as to avoid the other boy.

He finds out that Jeno’s in his math class as well, and again, just his luck that it’s a daily class. There truly is no escaping the other.

It is in this class that he learns of Chenle’s mission to get Jeno and Renjun together, and in this class that he even deigns to  _ encourage _ it, because that’s what a good friend would do. And even though he and Renjun aren’t friends yet, he can sense that they will be.

He’s good at worrying about everyone’s happiness but his own.

(Sometimes, late at night when he’s feeling a little bit selfish, he texts his friends to complain and rant. His most recent being about how he just wants one good relationship before he heads off to college and how he can’t believe that after everything that’s happened to him, he’s still afraid of being happy.)

* * *

 

Homecoming comes around, and it is at this point that Jaemin decides that he’s sick of waiting. He fully intends to confess at the dance, and with Jungwoo and Jisung egging him on, he almost does.

And then, Renjun’s there. And he’s already talking to Jeno, and Jaemin freezes again.

(He spends the rest of the night in an odd funk of alternating moods: crying into his hands at one moment, dancing alongside his friends at another.)

He texts Donghyuck, late into the night a brief message that says ‘ _ if he walks into math on Monday and tells me that they hooked up, I’m going to jump out of the window’.  _ He knows that he’s being dramatic, but that’s how he feels.

* * *

It’s Monday, and Jaemin actively wants to go home. He sat through an English class full of awkward eye-contact and an attempt of flirting on his part that he thinks looked like he was having a stroke. The bell rings, and he gathers up his things. He takes the slightly longer route to his math class, and is happy when Jeno is already seated and working on the assignment when he gets there.

He takes his seat, surprised when Renjun is not there. Renjun arrives a few minutes late, and slides into the seat next to Jaemin, asking quietly if he can copy the notes that he missed.

Jaemin slides his paper to him without a word, and, glancing surreptitiously toward Jeno, returns his attention to the board.

A few minutes later, he turns to Renjun. “How was your homecoming?”

“Good,” Renjun replies.

“Anything happen with the,” Jaemin’s voice drops, “Jeno thing?”

Renjun seems to blush a little and Jaemin’s stomach turns.

“We danced together a little bit, but other than that nothing happened.”

Jaemin plasters a fake smile onto his face and grips Renjun’s shoulder. “That’s good, isn’t it?”

Renjun blushes more. “Yeah. I think he likes me.”

Jaemin’s stomach is turning so much that he’s genuinely scared that he’s going to throw up; his heart is somewhere on the floor, possibly under Renjun’s foot.

“That’s great!” Jaemin exclaims, swallowing around his disappointment and discomfort to be a good friend.

Renjun looks down into his lap, and in the time that Jaemin has without Renjun’s eyes on him, he glances back toward Jeno, who makes eye contact with him. Instead of dropping it as Jaemin has before, he holds it. He’s not sure what his eyes are saying, he’s not even sure what his brain is saying.

Jeno breaks the stare first, and Jaemin turns back to Renjun, because at least one of them should be happy, even if it’s not Jaemin.

* * *

 

A few weeks later, Jaemin tells Jeno that he thinks that Jeno’s ‘pretty damn amazing’.

He receives no response.

* * *

Renjun learns that Jaemin has a crush on Jeno, and while he’s not mad, he’s not exactly happy either.

“Nothing happened there,” he tells Jaemin in math as Mark tries to take notes. “So, I have nothing to be mad about.”

He’s supportive, but distant, and Jaemin’s happy that the semester is ending because it at least means that he might not have to see Jeno anymore.

(He’s wrong, of course, as Jeno is in both his English and Math classes second semester.

* * *

 

Jeno is looking at him again.

This has been an ongoing phenominon for a few weeks, but Jaemin really only just started noticing it.  It makes his stomach turn in a weird way, and his heart skips beats everytime he catches the other.

He has a hard time looking Jeno in the eye now, mostly because he thinks he’s really the most transparent person he’s ever met, and that there’s no way in hell that Jeno doesn’t know that he likes him.

(There’s a small butterfly of hope that live in his chest, and he thinks that maybe it’s not all in his head and Jeno really does like him, but he’s trying with all his might to will that butterfly dead.)

(After all, when has that butterfly ever been right before?)

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> It's been a while, and of course the first thing I write is angst. Sorry guys.  
> If you enjoyed or cried, let me know in the comments. I'll try to get a happy one out there soon.  
> I told myself that I wasn't going to post this, because it's very personal, but I think it's time that i let it out into the world.


End file.
